Day 9 - The Two Grievances
There are two kinds of grievances. The first is where the mind and emotions participate together and the second merely involves the emotional self, separate from the mind. When the mind does not participate then the grievance is accepted by the emotional self, but not the mental.
It is thought by many that the cause of all grievance is a lack of forgiveness and that by forgiveness the problem will be solved.
It is true that forgiving or realizing there is nothing to forgive will help to alleviate the first type of grievance where the mind is involved, but it will do little to help in the second.
The reason for this is that the emotional body has a primitive mind of its own and some of its feelings are generated independent of what your mind thinks. Thus deciding to forgive or let the grievance go will not work when your emotional intelligence will not cooperate.
To aid with understanding let us look at examples of the two kinds of grievances.
Grievance, Type One:
Jim was in a car accident where Bob was the driver. Bob took a corner too fast and they crashed landing Jim in the hospital suffering several broken bones. Bob just had a few scratches.
In that painful state Jim’s mind blamed Bob and calculated good reasons for doing this. In this case the emotions followed the reasoning mind and a grievance developed. Bob visited Jim and profusely apologized, but to no avail. Jim continued to blame Bob and held on to the grievance.
Grievance, Type Two
Jill just finished her first attempt at poetry. She put her heart and soul into what she thought was a beautiful poem. She visited her best friend Joan and read it to her thinking she would appreciate its depth.
Joan did not seem impressed at all and said it not only sounded a bit corny, but some of the English needed correction. She grabbed the poem, and made changes with red ink and handed it back.
Joan thought she was doing her friend a favor, bur poor Jill’s emotional self was devastated. She returned home without responding to Joan’s criticism and corrections.
Laying in bed that night Jill realized that her feelings were suffering a major hurt. She tried reasoning them away, saying to herself, “Joan was just giving me her honest opinion. She is entitled to do that. And her grammar corrections were spot on. She didn’t mean to hurt my feelings so they should not be hurt, but they are hurt and I can’t seem to let them go.”
In this second example the mind does not see any reason to hold a grievance, but a grievance is still held. Jill proclaiming that she forgives Joan does nothing. The grievance remains. The emotional body has taken control and decided to harbor offense and will not let the mind talk it out of the pain it is nourishing.
For your assignment today reflect again on all the grievances you can recall, past and present. As you review them attempt to figure out whether they fit into Type One or Type Two.
Meditate on how one can find release from the two types and how the approach will be different.
Copyright by J J Dewey
Hunting God - A HowTo, Day 8 - I will find my grievances
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